Beer and sewing

What happens when one wants good quality camping gear that isn’t made from crazy synthetic materials? For a while I thought it was “nothing,” we are now doomed to purchase bright-orange nylon bags with material brand-names like “Event” or “Nano” and we have to pay through the teeth to get them. They I realized that it doesn’t have to be this way. There is no need to get these ridiculous looking bags that go up in flames the instant that a hot ember touches them.1

You can sew your own. And with whatever material your want. Although you might still have to pay quite a bit for them, just a little less so. Maybe a few less teeth are lost in the process as well.

Which brings me here:

Sewing is actually not all that difficult. At least not yet; I am not actually done with the bag. But I have already sewed a few things. And once you get past the intimidation of the machine with all those dials and knobs, it’s pretty straight forward: you press the pedal and stitches appear. Truly one of the easier things in life. Now, I can not sew in a straight line at all, but that doesn’t matter. I’m not trying be a fashion designer. I am not trying to compete on some show with Tim Gunn. I just want some decent gear to go camping in that doesn’t look like it was made for a sci-fi movie.

In the coming posts I plan on writing more about the how’s and why’s of the sleeping bag. So, there is that.

1 Remember actually sleeping near the campfire when you were a kid in that cotton bag from K-mart? Yeah, don’t try that with your EMS Mountain bag that you paid 350 dukes for.